my analysis is that you are smart guy who has been well conditioned by big govt and the cronies to give up on the idea of liberty. note... the middle class' standard of living has in major part been destrioyed by massive taxation and massive inflation. Look at how much food gas health insurance and a college education does to their pay check. Had the value of the dollar not been destroyed at least 2 of those items would be far lower. now look at this list of taxes we did not have 100 years ago... http://www.thepowerhour.com/news2/tax_list.htm TAXES: Accounts Receivable Tax Building Permit Tax Capital Gains Tax CDL license Tax Cigarette Tax Corporate Income Tax Court Fines (indirect taxes) Dog License Tax Federal Income Tax Federal Unemployment Tax (FUTA) Fishing License Tax Food License Tax Fuel permit tax Gasoline Tax (42 cents per gallon) Hunting License Tax Inheritance Tax Interest expense (tax on the money) Inventory tax IRS Interest Charges (tax on top of tax) IRS Penalties (tax on top of tax) Liquor Tax Local Income Tax Luxury Taxes Marriage License Tax Medicare Tax Property Tax Real Estate Tax Septic Permit Tax Service Charge Taxes Social Security Tax Road Usage Taxes (Truckers) Sales Taxes Recreational Vehicle Tax Road Toll Booth Taxes School Tax State Income Tax State Unemployment Tax (SUTA) Telephone federal excise tax Telephone federal universal service fee tax Telephone federal, state and local surcharge taxes Telephone minimum usage surcharge tax Telephone recurring and non-recurring charges tax Telephone state and local tax Telephone usage charge tax Toll Bridge Taxes Toll Tunnel Taxes Traffic Fines (indirect taxation) Trailer Registration Tax Utility Taxes Vehicle License Registration Tax Vehicle Sales Tax Watercraft Registration Tax Well Permit Tax Workers Compensation Tax COMMENTS: "Not one of these taxes existed 100 years ago and our nation was the most prosperous in the world, had absolutely no national debt, had the largest middle class in the world and only one parent had to work to support the family."
Martin, Let me ask you something. You're a trader right? You know that the market has a clever way of repricing assets when circumstances change right? So tell me this. What do you expect to happen should the gov't let's say pass an 80% inheritance tax on whoever, everyone we'll say. What do you expect the market to do? Nothing? Or reprice? I'll go with reprice. They are going to do what they always do which is find a way around it. Of course the poor and middle class probably are stuck with it (expensive lawyers and all that jazz) but the rich, well, time to make a trade. I can think of 1000 ways from Sunday how they could outsmart the gov't and never pay a dime. And round and round we go. Stalin was right you know. At the end of the day, the only real effective way to separate a man from his wealth was by way of the gun. And many on the left of course secretly support that. Not sure where you stand on that. But gun notwithstanding, how do you propose to actually implement an effective inheritance tax. Because if you can't implement it Martin, then this is best saved for cocktail parties where one can offer useless advice but still earn some street cred among the caviar and red wine crowd.
Marty, with regards to bringing God and Christianity into this fight, Jesus never would have allowed central banks. You know, the whole bad money changer stuff and all. Just sayin..,
Yep, I know what you're saying, Mav, as evidenced by my prior comments. Now, personally, I am a lot less skeptical than you are about it and here's undoubtedly the main reason why. I have been lucky enough throughout my career; to the point where I have accumulated sufficient family wealth to place my household in one of the top percentiles (using the UK wealth or income statistics). As one of the people who you'd describe as "rich", I can tell you that I am going to leave nothing to my children. I will not attempt to outsmart the govt, so all my wealth will go either to them or to charity. You may treat this with as much salt as you see fit. So here I am, separating myself from my wealth and there's no guns in sight. Does this mean that Stalin was wrong? I dunno, maybe. I certainly don't support the gun-based wealth separation methodology personally. As to the implementation, here's what I generally support: I think tax codes in the West, especially in the US, are ridiculously complicated. I think all loopholes and exemptions (including trusts and any other such jazz) should be eliminated. This would make it a lot easier to collect all taxes, including possibly the inheritance tax. Is this something you think can't ever be implemented and, as such "useless advice"? Secondly, like I said before, it looks like we're slowly gravitating towards the idea that dynastic wealth isn't really optimal, which might render inheritance tax unnecessary altogether and replace it with a voluntary "inheritance charity donation". Well, we're all traders (aka money changers) here on ET, innit? Just sayin...
the socialism debate is not new in this country by the way....... http://www.u-s-history.com/pages/h1669.html
Well Martin, I had no idea you were in the "dynastic wealth" category. Good for you. Or as Bud Fox would ask, "how many yachts do you need to water ski behind?" I thought we were talking about billionaires Martin. To be fair, I don't think you are in that category, you are in that slice where there is really no economic value to setting up a trust so you have to pay the piper one way or the other. Sorry to dilute your altruism a little. I do agree our tax code is complicated but that is the way your friends on the left like it. How else would we employ lawyers? Realistically the loop holes will never go away. The easy way to get rid of them of course is to move to the national sales tax (left hates this) or move to a flat tax (left hates this as well). So it looks like it's back to raise taxes, create more tax loop holes and sock it to the middle class. No Marty let me offer you a suggestion. Tell the Central Banks of the world to go take a long walk off a short pier. Deflate all the assets that generated your "comfortable" wealth. Stop letting the rich exercise their free call options provided by the fed and force the rich to invest more in productive assets that would actually grow the middle class and help the poor instead of handing it to some hedge fund manager in Greenwich, CT or Mayfair if you will and allowing them this easy 20% to 30% compounded returns with 2% variance while the rest of the world has to pay for the inflated crumbs that drops from their Tudor home dinner table. How about them apples!
I am really confused here... When did I ever say that I am in the dynastic wealth category? I didn't and I ain't, not by a long shot... Well, if we're talking about billionaires, then I wasn't aware of it. I certainly wasn't confining the discussion to billionaires. And, again, you may believe it or not, but I am certainly in a slice where there is economic value to setting up all sorts of things, not just trusts, to avoid taxes, including the estate tax. So you're not really diluting my altruism, although I would like to stress that altruism isn't the main motivation here. As to your comment regarding "my friends on the left" wanting a complicated tax code, that's just silly and let's leave it at that... Of course, nothing will ever change. What's the point of even talking about it? Personally, as I have mentioned previously, I am very much in favor of both some sort of VAT and a flat tax. Brilliant plan! Who would you have setting rates and all that other jazz when the CBs of the world have gone the way of the dodo bird? The politicians? How do you propose we "deflate" these assets? Arbitrary haircuts? How are you going to "force" the rich to do anything? Haven't you been saying all along that the rich will always find way around the rules? What you're giving me here, Mav, ain't apples; rather, it's more like "Apples to the people!" slogans.
The market would set rates. We do like markets don't we? Why should the market set the price for shares of AAPL, the price of corn and copper but not for rates? WE would not deflate assets. The market would do that for us once you pull the fuel source away. No arbitrary haircuts needed. And no one would "force" the rich to do anything. I was being coy. The market would force them to act as they watch their pathetic ill gotten assets shrivel to nothing. You see Marty, assets have no competition when rates are at zero. Let's see where those assets get priced with a 10% long bond. You see Marty, a long long long time ago in a country far far far away. We had this nation where savers would put their money in banks, earn a fair market rate return and banks would take capital and invest in their communities and create jobs and businesses and....well, you know, prosperity. Then came credit. Or should I say leveraged credit. Suddenly earning 4% a year by investing in a small business paled compared to the 30% returns offered by hedge funds. So now, capital is not going into these small marginal businesses, it's going into financial assets. You see Marty, the real disparity here is not between Bill Gates and the single black mother of 3 on the south side of Chicago. No sir. The real inequality no one is talking about is the 50% returns earned on inflationary assets vs the 1% seniors are earning on a lifetime of savings building this country. But let's not have that conversation, let's go get dem tax loop holes closed, and right quickly at that.
"By this means government may secretly and unobserved, confiscate the wealth of the people, and not one man in a million will detect the theft." â John Maynard Keynes "THE ECONOMIC CONSEQUENCES OF THE PEACE" (1920). "The few who understand the system, will either be so interested from it's profits or so dependant on it's favors, that there will be no opposition from that class." â Rothschild Brothers of London, 1863 "Give me control of a nation's money and I care not who makes it's laws" â Mayer Amschel Bauer Rothschild
I wonder what would happen IF most of the population understood the scam and went to find out who was behind it. Any idea ?